Beach Box, an 'eco-luxe' oceanfront cottage constructed from six retrofitted shipping containers, arrives on the dunes of Amagansett equipped with a very Hamptons-esque price tag of $1.395 million.

It simply wouldn’t be summer ‘round these parts without a dispatch from the South Fork of Long Island, or, as the kids like to call it these days, the Hamptons.

Last summer at around this time, I took a gander at the biggest residential water hogs in both Southampton and East Hampton Towns (J. Crew honcho Mickey Drexler’s Bridgehampton estate was the top offender). This year’s requisite Hamptons real estate-related story is a touch different as America’s most fabled — and certainly most fancy pants — summer colony has received its very first shipping container home that comes complete with knockout views, high-end bells and whistles, and a very Hamptons-esque price tag of $1.395 million (actually on the affordable end of things in the world of Hamptons real estate).

Although I blogged about a lovely shipping container studio located in Amagansett back in 2010, this hot-on-the-market shipping container residence dubbed Beach Box appears to be the first proper home constructed from recycled cargo containers to hit the Hamptons. A fair amount of hype has surrounded the project since it was announced earlier last year; when the home, also located in Amagansett, hit the market a couple weeks back, it received just as much attention. After all, this is Hamptons real estate that we’re dealing with.

Clocking in at 2,000-square-feet with 1,300-square-feet of deck space with a swimming pool and a killer outdoor shower, the four-bedroom, two-and-half bath Beach Box was developed by Andrew Anderson and constructed (in just a day, apparently) with six repurposed shipping containers (four on bottom, two on top) from SG Blocks, a NY-based company that retrofits and installs the modular units.

As you can see, the “eco-luxe” Beach Box is truly on the beach. Nestled into the Napague dunes, the home is situated on a .17 acre lot about 600 feet from the ocean (it’s street address is 1932 Montauk Highway). The land itself reportedly cost $300,000. Although it lacks any renewable energy systems that would possibly raise the ire of the neighbors and become instant NIMBY targets in such an appearance-conscious zip code, Beach Box manages to packs in a fair amount of sustainable features: Low-E windows, EnergyStar appliances, an energy-efficient HVAC system, a tankless water heater, Eco Top counters from Kliptech, and plenty of FSC-certified woods (decking, siding, flooring) throughout.

Over at TreeHugger, Lloyd Alter does what he does best and dissects the home’s design, pointing out some rather glaring, beach house-specific shortcomings including a lack of shading and natural ventilation. For some reason, I’m thinking that potential buyers will be more concerned about the home’s Montauk Highway location and not about the absence of overhangs. An interesting critique from Alter that leaves me wondering how Anderson and his team will approach the slew of other shipping container beach homes that they have planned for the area.

Inhabitat writer Tafline Laylin is less critical in her assessment of the sleek oceanfront cottage, and seems more focused on how building a shipping container home in a super-wealthy area like the Hamptons seems so very unlikely. Eh, not really — while shipping container architecture certainly isn’t exactly the norm on the far East End of Suffolk County where mega-mansions rule supreme, I don’t think it’s that unusual that this home was developed; a novelty for now, sure, but not that unlikely as I've seen other luxury shipping container homes be built in plenty of well-heeled areas on the West Coast and elsewhere.

Click here for details on Beach Box. Any thoughts from seasoned shipping container home pros?